A day of queues

7 January , 2010

So yesterday my parents took a day’s leave to help me get Nicola registered at Home Affairs and to get her to the Baby Clinic for a weigh-in.

First stop: Home Affairs Randburg

It was like Deja Moo (same shit different day) when we got there. Last week their system was down and the lady at the counter (3rd one we queued in for that day before we got the right one) had told me to come straight to her without queuing this week. Little surprise that she was nowhere to be found and no one ever heard of her before. Henceforth she will be known as Shadi, mirage of Randburg Home Affairs. Anyway, I managed to skirt past the wrong queue and get straight to the desired counter anyway – to the surprise of some of the people who were waiting around not realising that there was NO QUEUE at that counter…mwahahaha! (side note: when cutting in front of people, intentionally or not, it is ESSENTIAL not to make eye contact).

One hour later I had my girl’s abridged birth certificate. It takes an hour to punch in roughly 5 fields of info and print the document for in case you were wondering. The unabridged one takes 12 weeks to get but I have applied for it. Question: what’s the difference and what do I need the unabridged one for? I dunno, but since I saw everyone in the long queue were trying to get that or bitching about not getting it, I thought I might as well get the process started because it must obviously be necessary? This one women had the mother of all temper tantrums in the waiting area…it was spectacular to see her carrying on like a banshee and foaming at the mouth. Looks like she’s been waiting 5 months for hers. Seriously though, the tantrum was so good that she scared the entire building into a deathly silence with it – well done! 🙂 Someone else came in to have her 1977 marriage certificate verified and I was very amused when one official popped out a random passage to let her know that her husband was married to her, but she was not married to him. (in some relationships this can come as quite a relief when this happens I think?)

Next stop: Baby clinic and little miss know it all

You could probably find a baby clinic behind every second bush here that’s how many there are. So it’s just my luck that the one which is spitting distance from my house is still closed for Christmas and when I phone to make an appointment keeps telling me they’ll open next week, and then the week after and so on and so on. The hospital told me she had to be weighed every week! So I thought I better get to it since for the past two weeks we just weighed her ourselves on the kitchen scale. I went all the way to Fourways to have her weighed yesterday. Pfft! On the shiny side, they seem to be very happy with her weighs and progress. She’s meant to have lost 10% of her initial body weight and then regained it slowly by now – in fact she never did and she is now half a Kg heavier than when I took her home. On the not so shiny side, I felt like strangling the f-ing know it all nurse, who has an opinion about EVERYTHING. She can kiss my ass really, I’ll be weighing Nicola at home again if the other clinic is closed – that women would fairly rapidly drive me to some sort of violence. Since there really are so many clinics I don’t think I have to expose myself to annoying people at places I’d rather not go to – I’ll just shop around till I find the one that fits for us, it’s not like they’re doing us a favour or anything: when you pay you are the customer, not so? 😉

I guess the important thing is that Nicola is now registered, and she has been weighed and seems to be in good health. I’m glad we have that behind us now – the next day of scuttle, if all goes according to plan, will be the 22nd when we both have to go for our 6 week check ups.

The unabridged birth certificate has the child’s full details as well as that of both parents. We had to apply for ours for immigration purposes. I haven’t taken Logan to be weighed yet, I can see she is picking up weight. We pop her on our scale at home. Don’t have the time or patience to run around looking for a clinic that is open.

I have to apply for all of our passports and I’m dreading it. I also found out that I can’t apply for my son’s on my own, his father has to go with me. Should be fun, it will be my hubby the ex and I at Home Affairs ha, ha,…..

Glad to hear the kiddo is doing so well. And yes, those nurses can get very annoying.

As to the sleep thing (i have read your other posts), I have quite a bit of experience – having a great sleeper and two not so great. The key when they are so tiny is to wake them up in the daytime every 3hours for a feed, and to leave them at night. They tend to confuse day and night so you have to show them the difference. Also, during daytime, keep everything light, talk in loud voices, put the radio on, talk to her- at night, keep it quiet and dark, do not make eye contact and keep everything very calm. It really works, I promise.

All 3 my kids slept through by 12 weeks (and I breastfed – they tend to sleep less than bottle fed). What happened after they turned 6 months is another story – but twins are just on another level all together.

Jenty, I kind of did. It wasn’t nearly as soul destroying as I though it would be spending my day in queues – when you get to entertain yourself with the people around you and how much “fun” they’re having then it’s not as boring as just standing there.

Girl vdS, thank you! I’m very glad that she’s doing well – I can’t really take all the credit though, she’s just an amazingly easy baby.

Fairy Girl, aaah I see. Well, I’d like to have that birth certificate just in case I need it at some point. I’ll wait a couple of years before I get Nicola a passport – not that I plan to leave the country or anything but from time to time we like to go on vacation in Botswana or Mozambique and she’ll need it for that. It’s not an issue yet since I won’t take her anywhere without proper medical care available while she’s so tiny anyway. since I didn’t put TGC’s details on the birth certificate I don’t think he’ll have to get involved at all thank goodness.

Cat, thanks for the advice. Jenty also told me not to interact or talk to her if possible at night, and to keep it as dark as possible. I’ve been trying that but it hasn’t taken yet. Oh well, she is only at week 3 now so maybe she’ll get it down by week 12? *keeps fingers crossed*

Tamara, shame – I do feel kind of sorry for them. They’ve obviously got very limited resources and they are trying to do the best they can…the fact that that is so shockingly little is another matter, but it’s not for lack of trying I promise you. I missed your blog too! Can’t wait to catch up on everything you’ve been up to. My life has revolved more or less round poop, feeding and lack of sleep so I have to live vicariously, see? 😉